Good morning everybody on this bright and sunny day. I’m looking forward to going to see the first day of the second test against Sri Lanka tomorrow at Lords, although I haven’t quite recovered from our victory on Monday at Cardiff. Exciting times for us cricket lovers...

I visited Google at their central London Office on Tuesday. I wanted so see some of their latest office applications in practice and discuss the opportunities that technology like this could offer us in Wiltshire. The latest generation of email and applications such as spreadsheets and word processors can all be based on the web which means we don’t have to pay for expensive software on every personal computer. The opportunities for us are huge. If we adopted such technology, we could dramatically reduce the costs of ICT provision to the organisation – freeing up money for use on other front line priorities in the Business Plan. Watch this space...

Today I met with the managers of our new team – Transformation & Resources at our monthly Departmental Leadership Team (DLT) Meeting. I took the team through the set up and management planning arrangements for the new team. We covered the following areas for the new team: purpose, vision, objectives, people, structure, governance, budget, methods and models and communications. I have asked that managers to share this information with you and discuss it in your team meetings. This is important because I want all our staff to have the opportunity to shape this moving forward. If you want me to come along to your team meetings to share this with you then please just ask.

The biggest challenge we face as a new team is to explore the alternative delivery models that we might pursue in the future. This is more complex than the traditional in-house or out-source alternatives. The government are keen that we look at other models based around social enterprise principles such as mutual’s (for example, the John Lewis Partnership which is not owned by shareholders, but is owned by its employees). We will be getting into these and other options over the coming months to evaluate the potential benefits or otherwise for the citizens of Wiltshire.

Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton